I am going down to the Keys in two weeks. Does anyone have some fishing tips for down there? I will be in a kayak and may go out one day deep sea.

What Key or Keys will you be fishing? Big differances between them.

We will be in plantation, we are there for ten days so can make day trips, if needed.

On the gulf side, there will be be bonefish on the flats, especially on a rising tide. Best bait: live shrimp. They are spooky - stay quiet and avoid hull slap. Deep flats could have permit but they aren't very common. Again quiet. They love small crab.

You will see some small offshore islands or clumps of mangrove. Most of these will have a slightly deeper channel around their perimeter. Fish these and any cuts going into the mangroves for redfish and mangrove snapper. There are also a few trout in these areas but most of them are farther NW in the Park. There are lots of channels and drains to these areas that you should try fishing on a dropping tide... especially toward the low end of it. These will have everything including shark at times.

There should still be a few resident tarpon around the bridges. If you are willing to travel a little... the Channel 5, and 7 mile bridges will be the best for them. Best time is evening in a moving tide. Drift a silver dollar sized crab so it travels at the same speed of the tide current. 2nd best bait is a whole live mullet. Cut mullet can also work. Be prepared to have a surfing adventure if you hook one from your kayak.

If you get a windy streak and don't want to go yakin or offshore, try fishing the bridges frow their walkways. I often used tiny piece of shrimp or squid to get small fish like grunts.
Hook up the little fish you catch. like grunts with enough weight to stay near the bottom in the tide pull. Keep moving from one bridge piling to the next. I taken snook and gag grouper up to 10#s this way. Even better night fishing. You will need some kind of drop net or drop gaff to land them.

Pay attention to size limits... you may get checked.

By now there should be sails, kings, cobia, and bottom species @ the 40' to 100' area on the atlantic side. If you get a day that will be relatively calm all day (unlikely) you have to try fishing this side with your yak... You can troll with your yak in as little as 30' to 40' (about 1 to 1.5 mile out) and get really nice grouper and cobia. Troll with a large rapala that runs 25' deep. We call this trolling the "chowline". All good eating fish.

Good luck... Send us a report on how you do.